Tauranga Day #3

12/29/07

Today we went on a Tasting Tour, which included a stop at a local brewery called Brewers, 2 wineries, and a bar for cocktails. The brewery tour was okay. Our tour guide had to do the tour because the brewery owners had forgotten that we were going to be there! But our guide was very knowledgeable, so that was nice. Then we got to taste all the beers and they were really good. We all liked the Pilsener a lot, so we actually bought a 12-pack of it. Jenny and Paul really liked the Dark beer too, but I can’t drink much of that.

After the brewery, we drove out to Morton’s Winery. All the wineries in the region don’t actually grow their grapes here because the soil is too fertile, so they own vineyards in other areas, like Marlborough at the northern tip of the south island, and the Gisborne region in the north island. Morton’s had a lot of different varieties of wine, so we got to taste a lot, both whites and reds. We ended up buying Viongier (which we really like in Virginia too!), Chardonnay, Mercure (a red wine), Merlot Cabernet, and Montepulciano (an Italian-style red). We were all pretty buzzed after that stop.

Next we went to a little restaurant to eat lunch. The lunch was really good (Paul and I had open faced sandwiches that were really good). After lunch, we drove across the street from the restaurant up to a really nice lookout point that gave us great views of Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty. It was beautiful!

Next we drove to the other winery, Mills Reef. They seemed to specialize more in the red wines, but they were all pretty good. They had a lot of dry red wines, so Paul was in heaven and could hardly decide which ones to get. We ended up getting the Reserve Chardonnay, Reserve Pinot Noir, Reserve Syrah, and the Reserve Merlot Malbec. They had 3 labels, and the Reserve was the label in between. Their best label is Elspeth, which is actually sold in the U.S., but we actually liked the Reserve label ones the best, which is actually nice since they were cheaper. But at least we know this winery sells in the U.S., so hopefully we can find some.

After the winery, we drove back to Tauranga and went to a bar called the Naked Grape for cocktails. That was nothing special, but it was nice. That’s where the tour ended. That night, we went to dinner at a pizza place, which was actually pretty good because it was real Italian, and then we went to bed early.